How Many Herbs Make One Darkmoon Card of Mists

An online friend of mine asked me how many herbs are needed to make a single Darkmoon Card of Mists in World of Warcraft. I guessed and said 400, but that seemed like too many. I figured I would crack open a spreadsheet and solve this riddle with some conservative math and a good Scotch.

Let’s face it: math is hard. Instead, we can simplify things by generalizing that the milling rate for a Mists of Pandaria herb works out to be about 1:1 in terms of stacks to Starlight Ink “value.” What I mean is, on average, if you mill a stack of herbs, you are most likely going to yield enough Shadow Pigment and Misty Pigment to craft and/or trade for one Starlight Ink. This is more or less a fair way to figure out how much herb you need to gather or buy in order to craft a card.

HERB

SHADOW

MISTY

STACKS FOR CARD

TOTAL FOR CARD

Green Tea Leaf

10

1

10.6

212

Rain Poppy

10

1

10.6

212

Silkweed

10

1

10.6

212

Snow Lily

10

1

10.6

212

Fool’s Cap

12

2

6.75

135

There are a couple of additional points, though. Fool’s Cap has a slightly higher ink yield than the other herbs. This can make a difference as to what herbs you want to use to mill if you tend to buy your herbs. Scribes also need to use one of their Scrolls of Wisdom to create the card. The scroll consumes three Ink of Dreams, so, technically, you will need eleven stacks of herb in total to craft a single Darkmoon Card of Mists.

Let’s go back to Fool’s Cap for a second. To be more precise, it takes 36% fewer Fool’s Cap to make a single card when compared to the other herbs found around Pandaria. Basically, when you’re trying to decide which herbs to purchase from the auction house to make your card, use the following logic:

Buy up all the herbs in #1 starting with the lowest price as long as that price is below the value derived from #2.

If the price generated from #2 is less than any of the herbs listed in #1, then, don’t be a fool and buy Fool’s Cap. See, that wasn’t so difficult. Now go out and make a killing buying herbs cheap, milling, and selling cards while the Darkmoon Faire card prices are outrageous.